What Matters Most by Gwynne Forster

decent hour,” he said. “Where’s the money?”
    “I don’t work tonight, Daddy. I’m on my way to class.”
    He towered over her like an angry bear. “So you didn’t bring any money, and that’s your excuse. School is all you think about. Get out of my sight.”
    He strode past her, and as she bounded out of his way, her shoulder hit the banister with a loud thud sending pain from her neck to the tips of her fingers. She picked up her schoolbag, stumbled out the door and closed it. If only she could survive until she got the degree! A promise was a promise, but her mother had asked too much. Now his anger and abuse gave her—in effect—permission to break her promise to her mother.
    When she returned home from school, his snores greeted her, and she slipped past him to the kitchen, got a sandwich and a glass of tomato juice. A hot shower soothed her aching shoulder, and she slept soundly. The next morning, she dragged herself out of bed and dressed by sheer force of will. She’d had all she was prepared to take, and her anger mounted until it became a fierce, almost dangerous, thing with energy of its own. As she descended the stairs, she tallied her grievances against her father and left home without greeting him or cooking his breakfast. He’d gone too far.
    On the way to work, Melanie bought some doughnuts and decided to ask Jack if they could have a microwave oven. When she walked into the office, she realized she had come to regard it as home, for it was there that she was happiest. She made coffee and drank it in the waiting room, a place nearly as elegant as the waiting room in Jack’s Bolton Hill office. Light brown leather sofas and chairs were grouped attractively with mahogany tables on which were silk-shaded brass lamps; beige-brown Bokara carpets, machine-made but beautiful, covered the floor. She looked around at the reproductions of Doris Price, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence and Elizabeth Catlett, great African-American artists, and let herself dream.
    “One of these days, I’ll have beautiful things, too,’ she said aloud. After finishing her coffee and two doughnuts, she placed orders for supplies by telephone, sent bills out for patients who had insurance, wrote checks for Jack’s signature and sent thank-you notes to patients who volunteered to pay in kind.
    “He’s the doctor. It’s his office and his business, but it’s our job together,” she told herself, “and I’m going to do everything I can to make Jack’s dad sorry for not supporting him in this.”
     
    Jack arrived at the office shortly after three and greeted her with his famous smile. She vowed not to get too familiar with him, because she figured she would be the loser, but she smiled in return, because she couldn’t resist his infectious grin.
    “Hi. Looks like you’ve been busy as usual,” he said, looking at the papers she’d placed on his desk. “I hadn’t thought I’d need a secretary here. We could do this at my other office where I have a secretary and a receptionist.”
    She didn’t want that. What else would she do for the three full and two half days a week when they weren’t having office hours? “If I don’t get it right, okay,” she said, “but if you’re satisfied, I’d like to do it here.”
    “I couldn’t be more pleased,” he said, and his grin assured her that he meant it.
    “Thank you, sir.”
    He sat down, leaned back in his desk chair, picked up a pen and tapped it rapidly on the desk, reminding her that he could be impatient. “Melanie. I have asked you not to call me sir, and I don’t want to hear that word come out of your mouth again when you’re addressing me.”
    She looked straight at him, took in his thunderous gaze and said, “Sorry, sir. I’ll try not to do it again, sir.”
    “Wh-what?” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, saw the deep crevice in his forehead and the pensive expression on his face. He sat forward, ran his hands over his tight